Love as a Form of Binding Ch. 16

**In this, I'm painting a picture of a different sort of demon - 2-legged warring beasts who live in the under-hells. I make the odd allusion to horses here, but it's to help the reader's imagination more than anything. They know nothing of equids of any kind, and just to be clear here, they are not centaurs. They are bipedal killers with long teeth. O_o

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Zele's eyes widened, but that was all that she had the time to manage before Brinack crashed into her and they tumbled out through the door to land rolling on the floor of the main hall outside. Several of the demons in the ranks of the nearest legion were knocked off balance, though none fell.

But in the confusion, Zele had the time to recognize the threat to her, and the strange knowledge and abilities which had come to her when she'd been given this shape took over instantly. She used the momentum to throw Brinack off as she slid to a stop on her back.

Brinack felt as though she'd run into a stone wall, not knowing that Zele's body had far more mass to it than was visible at a glance. She landed, sliding on her face as the spikes of her mask raised small sparks against the polished stone floor. She was up on her feet in an instant, drawing one of her blades over her shoulder as Zele planted her feet and threw herself into a standing position.

She turned around, "Was the wine that bad?" she smiled, tilting her head a little, "I knew that it wasn't the best that I've ever tasted, but,..."

Maezou flew out through the doorway up and out across the hall. She was looking for Toby, and more urgently, she was looking for Kerry.

"How do you wish to fight before you die?" the general asked, "Name the weapons."

"I don't know, "Zele replied as she watched the slayer stand in readiness, "I've never thought of dying. I'll give it a thought when it happens. For this -- whatever it is -- tell me what you wish to use."

Brinack reached for her other blade.

"Whatever," Zele said, moving her gladius to her left hand and raising her free one. Her large axe flew into her grasp from across the hall a second later.

"I wish I knew what I did to bring this on. It can't be my beauty, by the look that you wear."

The slayer shook her head slowly as she grinned coldly, "No it is not that. It is what you have done with it." She changed her mind and dropped her blades, deciding that she wanted to beat this one to death now.

Zele followed suit.

There was a tense moment as the two looked at each other.

During that time, Brinack wondered what this one had that had caused Kerry to want her more than her. She saw the error in her thoughts. He hadn't known that she still lived, and anyway, she had no claim on him.

The anger began to pass as she looked around a little and she saw that her actions here were quite against what she'd always preached to them all endlessly whenever there had been any angry moments among the slayers. She was doing exactly what she'd always told them never to do to a comrade-in-arms. The same had to apply to the one that she faced. This strange warrior girl was beautiful in her way, and she'd been one of the ones who had freed her lord. That had to count for something.

She straightened up and walked to Zele with her hands open.

"Forgive me," she said, "I had no cause to feel anger to you. I was about to make another mistake. And I have already made far too many to add my petty jealousy to the pile after what you all have done for our Appolyon. I am very sorry."

She lowered her hands and bowed her head. There was the combined sound of countless gasps from the troops who watched them. Their general had never bowed her head to anyone before.

"Help me, friend," she said quietly. "You were among the ones who freed our lord. Help once more if you can. Help me now, for I long to feel the kiss of your axe there on the back of my neck."

Zele shook her head in confusion, "I would fight you since you attacked me, but I will not do what you ask." She reached out to lift the general's head and she peered at the little that she could see of the face in that helm. "I don't even know what I did to upset you. If you'd tell me, I might have an idea, but I still don't want to kill you."

Brinack said it in a whisper and Zele understood it then. She pulled the general toward her. Brinack wondered how it was possible.

"I am heavier than I seem," Zele smiled, "As far as the other thing, I only did what we all felt was needed by him. You only said a little here, but I can tell that there is a lot more to it."

She nodded as she stared into the helmet in front of her, "If I knew any of what I hear and can feel from you, then if I knew that you even existed then, I would have been the one who playfully pushed the two of you together. If you knew me, you would know that about me. I didn't know of you, and I would never come between a pair," she whispered.

Brinack shook her head.

"There is no pair," the slayer said quietly as her shoulders fell, "There is only Brinack the fool."

She turned away and walked to where her blades lay on the floor, doing her best not to look into the faces there looking back at her. She picked the swords up slowly and slid them into their scabbards on her back.

She looked up to see the way out of the hall. She had no desire to have to walk out of the place past the ones that she'd led for so long.

She gave it a thought, and decided that Kerry was as well-defended now as he'd ever been and more, if the ones here cared for him as much as it was evident to her that they did. She thought that she'd leave and go back to where they'd waited on that windswept island.

Whatever he'd been freed to do was bound to happen soon, and she'd wait for that to happen without her. Once it was past, she thought that she'd just find her way to the under-hells again. Sooner or later, the ones there would do for her what she wanted now.

She spread her wings.

"STOP!"

The voice rang clearly through the great hall. Brinack groaned once quietly. She knew the voice, though she'd never heard it raised like this before. She was sure that this would get a lot worse now. Well, she thought, let him fry her out of the air, then.

It didn't matter anymore anyway.

The tips of her wings rose up for the stroke that would begin her lonely flight deeper into disgrace.

"Stop General! ... I COMMAND IT!"

The tips of her wings hung in the air quivering. Brinack stood fettered and immobile.

"I did not give you leave to depart," the young voice said "You will remain here."

Inside her coal black armor, Brinack felt the last of her heart breaking. For all of the wrong things that she'd done, this would now be the worst punishment possible. He'd keep her here, and he'd never know what he was doing to her by it, every long minute only adding to the torment of the last.

Hundreds of feet away, the ranks of the shocked slayers opened to allow his passage as he walked. Kerry strode toward her with a stormy expression as he walked, looking down slightly with Maezou and Tobias following close behind. He could have just appeared before her, but he needed the time to think of what he'd been told by a rather upset Maezou.

All that Brinack could do was breathe. She was frozen in space, feeling like a prisoner, like one shamed -- or about to be. She wished that he'd stopped her heart as well.

The last of the files of demons parted and then she saw him in front of her, looking up at her slightly as always, though something had changed. She was still just a little taller than he was, but he was so much closer to her height now than when she'd begun to teach him and he'd had to look up to her from so far below her.

It hurt her even more. To see the face of the one that she'd always ached for, showing her his displeasure at last, it was far more than she thought that she could bear.

He drew a deep breath and let it out as he looked. He took in all of her obedient might, every detail of her black uniform in place, gleaming darkly in the light of the torches which lined the walls and the fire pit which flared high again from his emotion.

At least she'd caused him to have some emotion, she thought bitterly, even if it was his anger toward her for trying to desert. She sighed.

Another unforgivable offense.

He said nothing for a moment, letting her hang in the fetter that he'd cast.

Here she was, he thought; the perfect soldier always, the one who'd chosen his legions and forged them into something which had lasted for thousands of years on the chance that he'd be free one day and might have a need for them. She was the one who had led them in their murderous rebellion at being commanded to disband and had guided their rage over his capture, so that they had what they'd need in their hearts to keep themselves alive and waiting. He could only wonder what they'd all been through, and she'd managed it all.

His eye fell on the recent scrapes on her breastplate from her contact with the floor a moment ago. Kerry looked at her likeness embossed there on her armor -- just as it was on all of their breastplates. He knew that under other circumstances, she'd fume in her embarrassment that it was no longer perfect for him to only look at.

The perfect soldier, Brinack.

He thought of the other things that she'd done in his non-existent name, long before he'd even been spawned. When it had happened and he was a tiny demon squalling for the milk of the one who had spawned him and had no love for him at all, wanting only to be finished with the task that she'd agreed to, Brinack had waited then, always asking about him whenever she'd dared to. She'd waited for news to take back to the many who longed to serve him. Any scrap of news that she could pick up, no matter how trivial or small, she'd taken back to his horde, telling them of it and then they'd all discuss it earnestly for hours, searching for hidden meanings in the tiny acts of an infant before she called them back to their drilling.

She'd secured quarters for them all, food as well, and she had commissioned their arms to be made, invoking the threatening name of his father where necessary. She only hoped that no one ever called her on it. When the armorers had asked for an insignia to place on the weapons and breastplates, she'd flattened her ears and bared her teeth at them.

"That," she'd said in answer, "just that."

And so it was. The look that she was famous for adorned the tools of their bloody trade.

He'd been frightened to death on the day that he'd been taken to meet her on the dark and blasted former battlefield where he was to begin his training at her hands. He was fifteen then, but he'd asked about her. What he'd been told then had made his knees feel as though they were made of water.

A great slayer, he'd been told, one feared by many. She'd been a fighter in the arenas and the pits, there only to feel the challenge and to sate her desire to win. She'd begun when she was no older than he was that day, doing things which he never could have done then.

When she'd clawed her way through the higher ranks of fighters, it had been her trademark then as it had been in any combat that she faced to rip out a defeated one's dripping and quivering heart to hold it high in victory for a moment as the blood from it ran down her strong arm while she'd bared her long teeth and howled out in her triumph.

It was her signature moment then to devour it as she looked into the eyes of the ones that she had yet to face, and the lords who watched her progress with satisfied nods to each other. She'd been a young walking legend in the under-hells, where to be alive on any given day was already an accomplishment. When he'd been presented to her, he'd thought that he might faint. He saw only power, force, and grace in a being who stood easily among a group of fearsome demons, the things of which humans knew nothing.

The things which lived in the nightmares of the demonlords in the upper hells.

He'd never forgotten his first look at her.

He'd seen her from her rear flank the first time that he'd dared to look far enough ahead as he approached. She was standing in some earnest conversation with others of her kind. There was no mistaking the one who was to teach him.

They looked to be something like he was, long-legged ones who stood on hooves covered with long hair, those legs topped with armor-covered haunches in their uniforms, the armor allowing their long, silken tails to pass through. Like his own, he knew somehow that inside the silk, there was a demon's tail. When she'd flicked it, he saw that the tail inside was thick. They all had long, heavily muscled arms -- her included -- which ended in powerful clawed hands and were attached to shoulders, the kind that could drive their blades deep or crush someone like him without a thought.

He couldn't see then, since they all wore helmets, but he was sure that they all had ears which stood out and up a little. The faces that he could see were something like his own as well. He had the same eyes and horns, the same goatish-looking human sort of face, and he could see that they had the same long sort of teeth when one of them laughed a little before they were aware that he'd been approaching them.

They'd seen him then, before he was even announced to them. The others had bowed and backed away. He'd never been able to understand that then, why everyone always bowed to him. He'd never done anything to cause anyone to do that.

His life changed forever in that instant when she turned to face him.

The smile that he saw behind her face-shield almost drove him to his young knees.

She'd walked the rest of the way to him then and she'd bowed low to him as she began to express her joy at finally being given the honor of meeting him. He was surprised to hear from her that she'd known of it when he'd been spawned and had waited for him ever since. He didn't know what he'd been expecting to hear as a voice from someone like her, but he was a little surprised that she didn't growl.

She'd even been graceful about it when his fear of her had caused him to lose his bladder. She ignored the way that the urine of his fright arced out from him and hit the ground, splattering her lovely legs with the ashes of the place.

"It is nothing, Lord," she'd smiled as she'd taken his hand to lead him to water then to wash it off. "I am ugly enough to cause this, I know it," she said.

She'd even washed his feet for him.

The trouble was that even in her armor, her face covered by her helmet and face-shield...

She wasn't ugly at all.

When she'd touched him, his hopeless little stick sprang to attention, but she pretended not to notice as she told him of how they had to work together to defeat those who might one day be arrayed against him on any field.

From her view of it, the time before their meeting had been sheer torture. Waiting for him to come to the practice field that day, she'd been a bundle of nerves. She couldn't have stood still to save her life; the best that she'd been able to manage had been to will her legs into a stance and allow her tail to twitch, hopefully unseen by anyone.

There had been years of self-examination before this. She recognized that she was beginning to obsess over someone that she hadn't met yet. It would have been so much easier for her if only he'd been homely. It was what she counted on to keep her heart out of it all.

She'd done her best to try for only glimpses of him as he grew from a little thing. Her efforts had been thwarted at every turn, mostly by circumstance. It had driven her mad with frustration. She had to teach the one -- not in matters where his innate abilities were what would be required, but rather to help him to see the need and the value of his legions and what they could -- and must -- do for him. In the event, she'd found that she had to teach him so much more, because he'd had so little in his life to learn from.

But she didn't know any of that on that first dark day. She'd only known one thing.

He was beautiful.

His young face had simply taken her breath from her. She'd had to struggle with it for hours afterward. The only drawback -- other than the confines of their relationship -- had been the sense that if anything at all were to happen between them when he was old enough, she'd have been the first one to make the accusation of cradle-robbery.

He'd been mortified several times at his own body's betrayals, but Brinack didn't care. She was even thankful for the interruptions. It gave her the chances to offer her reassurance so that he might be more comfortable with her, since they had a lot of ground to cover if she was going to teach him what he had to know on the battlefield. And the truth be told, she'd even enjoyed watching his struggles with his frequent and seemingly irrepressible youthful erections. It gave her the chance to pretend that it was nothing, and to be expected from someone of his tender age, which of course, it was.

But in her heart, she wished for the time to go by all the faster, so that he could gain a little maturity with a few years on him. She wanted the teaching to be over -- as much as she enjoyed mentoring him in warfare. Now that she'd seen him, she wanted for him to be old enough so that their relationship might change into what she wanted so much for them. It might not have ever come to pass, she'd thought at the time, but in him, she saw the male that she wanted for herself one day.

But it had never happened.

When he was barely old enough, the training changed of necessity, picking up the pace, and she'd had to set him challenges which kept them both mostly apart and busy in opposition to each other. They'd only meet to go over how he'd fared. They'd never had much time alone together anyway, and by then, he was so used to having her as his teacher and guide that he missed the very few hopeful signals that she'd had the chance to throw at him.

And then he'd been taken from them all.

He knew none of the pain that she'd suffered as she'd searched for him after she'd gotten the warning from the collection of high lords who had figured out the cause of the controlling one's demise and who had been behind it. They'd ordered the disbanding of the legions so that they might reach her and kill her, but she'd always been protected by so much skilled military strength that she might as well have been unassailable -- because she was in a very real sense.

He'd had his own troubles, and known none of what she'd faced.

But he was getting a bit of a clue this day, thanks to the red-haired demoness standing behind him here with such a concerned expression.

His thoughts came back to the present and he released the slayer from the spell.

She sank slowly to her knees. It was a moment before he noticed that her shoulders were shaking. He thought at first that perhaps she was ill. He'd never seen it before. He was about to ask when she moved a little and he noticed the shine coming to him from the stone floor there under her face.

The perfect soldier was crying.

He struggled with the very concept of it. He's never seen her like this. He was careful in how his voice sounded to her. He didn't want to make this worse.

"You were about to depart without my leave," he said softly, "Why? You have only just returned to me. I have not even had the chance to speak with the one that I have missed the most. What have I done to make you want to leave?"

Brinack sobbed only once and then she whispered, bowing her head further, "You have done nothing wrong, Appolyon. I am the one who has wronged you."

She now had a hope that she'd get her wish and be put to death. "I -- I am at my end. I cannot go on any longer. Since you command me to stay, I bring my crimes to you for judgment. I ask that I be killed for what I have done," she said, through the quiet sobs which had begun again in spite of her will.